


The Science of Selling Yourself Short

by krakenmyheart



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, No Incest, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 14:11:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18852664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krakenmyheart/pseuds/krakenmyheart
Summary: Follows the events of "Anywhere But Here", only with a different end--they play their show and run away.Diego and Vanya never got to choose their life, and now that they've left the Academy they finally have a chance to live the way they've always wanted. Unfortunately, it's a lot harder to let go of the past than they may have anticipated.





	The Science of Selling Yourself Short

**Author's Note:**

> This little piece of TUA has always resonated with me, so naturally I had to expand upon it. I love these angry, punk kids and I only want them to be happy ! The title is a name of a song by the band Less Than Jake. They're a little more poppy and ska than I would ever associate with the Prime-8's but it felt supremely fitting. Give it a listen (it's good).

Diego couldn’t hear a thing above the ringing in his ears, a lingering high from the gig that made the world feel distant. He tightened his fingers against the steering wheel to remind himself it was real while Vanya turned the volume up on the stereo until it cut through the static, laughing like she never had before, and maybe he laughed, too, and for the first time without restraint. The air from open windows bit at his face as they sped down the highway in the opposite direction of home. He smiled, glancing in the rear view and all at once it finally hit him. 

They were free.

Body’s apartment didn’t have the space of a mansion, but it was better in every other regard. One bedroom and a sofa and still less suffocating than the endless, hollow halls of the Hargreeves estate. Garbage and dirty laundry a foot deep littered the floors and cobwebs complimented the corners but there was life to it and despite the draft from cracked windows, even a warmth. Diego took the small space in with a glance. It felt more like home than home ever did and it hadn’t even been ten minutes. Funny how that worked.

“We really did it,” Vanya said, revelation lighting her eyes as she collapsed onto the couch and spread her arms wide across the cushions. A lifetime spent behind makeshift bars, dreaming of something more, and it finally came, wrapped in a dusty, one-bedroom that smelled like piss and dry rot and endless possibilities. 

“It’s only temporary,” Body insisted. He pulled a beer from the mini-fridge at the edge of the living room and offered it to Diego. Body liked to forget that he didn’t drink, always joking that he’d be better company if he were wasted.

Diego waved him off the way he always did. “We just need a place to crash.”

“‘Till the band hits the road,” Vanya added with a flashing grin. She leaned forward, pointing to the drink. “I’ll take one.”

Body hesitated before passing it over. “Don’t get used to this, either. I can barely afford to feed myself, let alone you two. I still don’t get it—leaving all that behind? You guys were rich.” He made a wide arc motion with his arms. “I mean, really fucking rich.”

The disbelief in his voice put Diego on edge. Seventeen years of scar tissue felt raw all around him. 

“Yeah,” he said after a moment and clapped Body on the shoulder a little harder than he intended to, squeezing his fingers tight like a warning. “You don’t get it.”

Body glared as he twisted away from Diego’s grasp, shaking out the pressure from his arm. He dropped the subject fast and made his way toward the bedroom.

“One of you can take the couch. Godspeed to whoever gets the floor.”

A failed game of rock-paper-scissors sealed Diego’s fate, and he found himself trying to clear a space for a bed among the trash, though he couldn’t help pointing out the assortment of stains on the couch just to make Vanya question it. Not that it helped.

“I won fair and square,” she said with a smile at the corner of her lips, illuminated by neon lights from the city outside. The whole room came to life, painted in changing hues of purple and red, it’s own kind of artificial sunset played to the tune of frantic, angry traffic and muffled voices from the neighbors down below.

Vanya didn’t budge, and she didn’t move her eyes from the window either, watching the world wistfully. 

“It looks different now.”

Diego climbed up to the couch beside her and glanced out. He had walked those streets a thousand times before, and lived in their shadows during patrols. It looked the same as it always did, even when he squinted and turned his head and closed his eye and opened it again. He could see bloody pavement and scumbags and stolen children. Vanya studied it like a painting in a museum, searching for beauty that didn’t exist and Diego turned around without a word. 

She watched a minute more before she pulled her backpack into her lap and dug into it for her smokes. A folded up envelope fell out with her hand and she held it carefully between her fingers, examining its face through the changing light.

“What is it?” Diego asked, unsure what to make of her silence.

“My plane ticket to Paris. That private school dad wants to ship me off to where I can learn to be a real girl.” She snorted and stuck a cigarette between her lips, which bounced with each word. “What do you think he’ll do when he finds out you aren’t going back?”

“When he finds out _we_ aren’t going back,” Diego said. Sometimes he had to remind her that she wasn’t alone. The message was hard to stick.

Vanya thumbed her lighter and the end of her cigarette flared as she inhaled. “He probably won’t even notice I’m gone.”

“Fuck him, anyway,” Diego said. “It’s his loss.”

Smoke filled the space between them, obscuring the frown that lingered beneath it though it was hard to miss. He resisted the urge to wave the cloud away from his face, and instead held his breath tight in his lungs.

“What about the others?” 

Diego shrugged. “They’ll do the same eventually.”

He wasn’t sure that was true, but Vanya didn’t question it. She twirled her lighter absently between restless fingers, the envelope still sitting in her lap, weighing down like a bad dream until Diego picked it up. It felt like stone. Heavier than it looked.

“The red-eye, wasn’t it?” he asked, trying to sound casual as he studied the details. A one-way trip. “Not too late to catch the flight. You know, if you wanted to.”

Her silence took him by surprise and his stomach turned sideways, inside and out with uncertainty until finally she plucked the envelope from his hands and held her lighter to the edge.

Flame climbed up the paper like spider legs, slowly consuming it inch by inch. When it reached her fingertips she dropped it into a garbage tin beside the sofa and warm, orange light flickered like the sun.

“We’re in it together,” she said, eyes forward.

Relief settled around him and everything went still again. Sometimes he needed to be reminded, too. He smiled and leaned back into the couch as the flames continued to burn ahead of them, turning the past into a pile of ash.

“Fuck Hargreeves,” he said, “fuck Paris, and fuck the Academy.”

The fire cracked a laugh. Light stung against his vision, but he refused to look away.

That night was one of Diego’s first sleeping away from home. Away from the others. He laid awake in the dark, turning every which way hoping to find comfort but the rigid floor offered none and each time he moved he hit something new; an empty beer can or an old burger wrapper, other things he didn’t want to think about. Light flooded through the windows from a city without curfew. Vanya slept motionless atop the couch, the drone of her headphones muffled beneath the constant noise from outside. She was usually the one who had trouble at night. She’d wake him up at three in the morning and share a song she’d written in a sleepless haze, or they’d sneak outside and throw rocks over the gates of the mansion. Sometimes they didn’t do anything at all except sit through the silence together and wait for the sun to rise. But now, all this way from home and she could finally sleep easy. Diego didn’t want to ruin it for her.

He left the apartment silently, knife moving between his fingers, never stopping, and neither did he, no aim or direction or idea of what he wanted, just a need for air. He took in a lungful and didn’t let it go. Bright lights made the night look midday, and like a bad habit, he slunk into the shadows, head down, blade reflecting, turning, twisting, drawing blood against his fingertip and sparking a familiar warmth beneath the skin. He studied the red stain gleaming on the edge of his knife as the city passed him by distantly, until the hair on the back of his neck stood on edge and he froze mid-step, gaze rising slow.

Across the street staring him down, a billboard for Clever Crisp Cereal beamed. Presented by Sir Reginald Hargreeves, it said, printed in bold red letters with a happy wink at the end and that monocled face in the background, impossible to escape. Its shadow sprawled over the buildings beneath, stretching out towards Diego’s feet like a phantom. The two of them stood alone, a whole world apart but close enough a chill ran up his spine. His knife went still. Blood dropped to the concrete and in the sudden silence he could hear it splatter. Then again, and something else, too.

A scream.

The world rushed back around him and all at once the noise was deafening—fists crushing bone in rhythm, shattered teeth, the wooden crack of a baseball bat. Something that sounded like the voice of his father at the back of his head.

Diego’s fingers tightened against the knife and he pulled himself away from the domineering image toward the sound of a fistfight. Music to his ears.

Two men stood over a curled, whimpering heap, kicking at any inch of flesh they could find. They didn’t notice Diego’s presence as blood spilled onto their boots and one of them dropped a red-stained bat onto the ground, grinning like he’d hit a home run. 

With the flip of a wrist, Diego sent the knife flying. It plunged hard into the meat of the batter’s shoulder and he doubled over with a groan. Eyes snapped up at him in unison, amusement flaring into anger so rapidly neither of them had time to speak as they abandoned the prey at their feet for something new. Diego stood his ground, cracking his knuckles as they approached. No mask, no armor, or padding. Nothing but bare fists to guide him true. 

He threw the first punch with a smile tugging at the edge of his lips, and it was still there when he threw the last, and when the two men cried on the ground beneath him. Diego ripped the knife free from the stranger’s shoulder, once more admiring the touch of red before he slipped it into place at his side.

Clutching his shoulder, the man gazed up in confusion and coughed spiteful words. “Who the hell are you supposed to be, anyway?

Diego didn’t answer him. 

When he left, he felt something pointed at his back—the gaze of the billboard, following him all the way to the apartment, looming. 

Vanya hadn’t moved from the couch, and she didn’t stir when the door shut or when Diego collapsed into a pile of garbage. Fresh bruises bloomed across his skin, lighting his bones ablaze with a pleasant, resonating sting that rang like a guitar chord. Sleep came to him quick and easy. 

That gentle throbbing pain in his fists, a lullaby. 

He woke to Vanya’s stare above him, annoyingly awake as she held a cup of coffee to her lips. Diego turned his back and buried his head beneath an arm to shield the sunlight coming in from the window and to escape the knowing gleam in her eyes filled with question at the sight of blood. 

“Aggressive sleeping again?” she asked. 

“Something like that,” he said, voice muffled. 

“What happened last night?”

He didn’t move but he could see the flare of red and purple painted over his knuckles as he blinked awake. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“So you went out for a midnight beatdown?”

“That part just kind of happened.”

Vanya was quiet. The click of her lighter signaled the start of a fresh cigarette and almost hid the disappointment in her tone. “You keep smashing your hands like that and you won’t be able to play bass.”

“You’re implying he can play it now,” Body said flat as his bedroom door creaked open.

Diego reached out for the nearest piece of trash he could find and chucked it hard in his direction. The clatter of an empty beer can and the surprised yelp that followed left him satisfied.

When Body recovered, he kicked a path clean through the garbage and stood over Diego with a look on his fuzzy face that was hard to read.

“That’s some way to show your gratitude,” he said, “considering I got us a gig tonight. And maybe even a tour.”

Diego shot upward, awake suddenly like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over his head. “A what?” 

“A tour.”

“Maybe?” Vanya asked. She moved to the edge of the couch, mouth dropping in disbelief. Her cigarette barely clung to the edge of her lips.

Body held up a crumpled tour poster for a band Diego only knew in passing. “Opening act lost a member so they’re looking for a new band to fill their slot. Think of tonight as a tryout, so as long as you don’t fuck it up—” He shot a glare down to Diego. “—then we got ourselves a tour.”

Vanya leaned back as the news sunk in. “Holy shit.”

“Five songs, that’s it,” Body said, insistent eyes still lingering on Diego like there was a question to it. “Five songs and we’re golden.”

Diego tried to ignore the itch in his fingers and the dried blood across his hands, and the doubt in Body’s voice that made him feel like a useless child.

“Five songs,” he repeated, forcing a nod to appease the others. 

Five songs to start new. He had a hard time believing it, but he caught Vanya’s eyes and the relief painted across her face reminded him that he wasn’t alone.

Backstage, at a club small enough to be a closet, Diego tried to remember that fact. Body had told him ten times over: don’t fuck it up. Don’t stop mid-show to break somebody’s face, is what he meant, though he wouldn’t say it in case those words became prophecy. They usually did. Old habits, and all. But Body kept droning on as they carried the gear from the van into the club, voice rich with condescension, grating against the skin. Diego’s jaw hurt from biting his tongue so long and he could already feel the cramp deep in his bones as his fingers curled. After fifteen minutes of the same damn thing, he finally spun around to meet Body’s eyes with a glare, words sharpened. Ready for war.

“I got it, alright? You don’t have to keep telling me like I’m a fucking idiot.” 

Body dropped a metal case and raised his arms defensively, mocking almost, but he knew to tread carefully and paused to think it over before he spoke. 

“How many times have you cut a set early? We can’t afford that tonight, that’s all I’m saying.”

“No shit,” Diego said. “Why don’t you worry about staying on beat for once instead.”

“Me, off beat? I told you it’s a creative choice, something you wouldn’t understand.” 

He looked ready to say more when Vanya stepped between them and made herself look bigger than she really was.

“Knock it off.” Her voice raised against blaring headphones to drown away the white noise of the club—her pre-show ritual, to help with the nerves. She shot a stiff glare to Diego. Ferocious as it looked there was a plea behind it too, and he forced his muscles to relax. 

They were in it together, after all. His mistakes were hers.

She disappeared out the back and after a few minutes Diego followed, where he found her leaning against the building with a trademark cloud of smoke swimming around her, expression distorted behind the fog. Her fingers shook as she brought a cigarette to her lips and inhaled, hardly paying any mind to Diego when he settled beside her. The muffled scream of music in her headphones raged in the silence as she pulled them down to her shoulders and the sound became crisp. 

“You okay?” he asked, waving the smoke away from his face.

Vanya moved her cigarette down in response and nodded slow, eyes forward. “It’s a big night, is all.”

“It’s one show, nothing we haven’t done before.”

He said it to assure them both but it didn’t make a dent in the stone of Vanya’s face and Diego had a hard time ignoring the warm, pressing pain threading through his knuckles as he reached for his knife just to hold it.

“What if we can’t cut it,” Vanya said, distant. The song in her headphones switched and in that moment of nothingness her voice dropped. “What if dad’s always been right about us. All those things he said over the years…”

Unspoken words drilled into him so deep they made an echo—not good enough. Utterly worthless. Disappointing. Vanya heard them too, and her eyes fell to the concrete. Diego could see the lines cracked into the mess of her makeup, a lifetime worth of crushed dreams set as deep as his own scars and suddenly it all felt heavy. He stood straight, something cold running through him, making his bones rigid and icy.

“He’s not.”

“Yeah, but—”

“He’s not.” He kicked mindlessly at the base of the brick wall behind them, watching little pieces of rock crumble down. The knife danced between his fingers. “He’s fucking not.”

Vanya nodded, and took one last drag from her cigarette before she dropped it on the ground and stomped it out with a twist of her foot until there was nothing left but shredded paper.

“Five songs,” she said, like a mantra.

Her face cleared from the smoke and her eyes lit up past all the doubts that still lingered and always would no matter how much reminding either of them got. Diego pushed his own aside and held a bruised fist out until Vanya tapped hers against it in silent solidarity like so many times before. The gesture said it all. No matter what happened, at least they had each other.

The chirp of a police siren pulled Diego’s attention sideways and he pocketed his knife without a thought. He watched the car drive by slowly, gaze inside fixed in their direction as it passed. They didn’t exactly blend in on the street, a mess of torn clothes and teen rebellion, and Diego had a hard time hiding his disdain for authority behind a scowl even as it drove away.

At the end of the block the car turned at a light and came back toward them, rolling to a stop in front of the club. Vanya stiffened. It put them both on edge but neither of them moved. The cuts shifted across Diego’s knuckles as the door opened and an officer stepped out.

Narrow eyes looked him up and down, studying him in a way Diego didn’t like. Making a judgement. Appraising his worth. Vanya nudged his ribs gently with her elbow as a warning, a way to remind him to relax. He didn’t.

“How old are you?” the officer asked, curiosity coloring his tone and though he tried to soften his face with concern, Diego could see through it like glass, all the way to the ugly core. 

His lip rose. “Why do you wanna know?”

“You look familiar.” 

“Twenty-one,” Diego lied. Most people couldn’t tell one way or another. The scars aged him up, and so did the resentment. He had a fake ID that helped, too. “That all?”

The cold stare shifted to Vanya and stayed there a moment like he didn’t know what to make of her before settling on Diego once more, trying to pick him apart. His face had been plastered on newspapers and tv screens since he was a kid and one dumb cop barely recognized him without a mask in broad daylight. He couldn’t tell if he was grateful for that, or just annoyed. The cop pointed down to his bruised knuckles and suddenly it didn’t matter.

“You been in a fight?”

“Actually, I fell.”

“You fell?”

He forced a shrug through tense shoulders, never once moving from the equally callous stare that bore into him. “It happens.”

“Did it happen last night? In an alleyway?” 

Diego’s fingers tensed but his gaze didn’t waver, not until a stilted smile crossed the cop’s face and made his stomach turn. He knew the answer already and they both knew better than to pretend as if he didn’t.

“He was with me last night,” Vanya said before Diego could speak. She only sounded half-convincing and the cop didn’t seem to care either way, but she still kept going. “Band practice. We’re staying with a friend—our drummer. He’ll tell you the same thing.”

“So there’s another one-eyed punk running around beating people to a pulp?”

Her jaw tightened and Diego stepped in front of her out of habit.

“I stopped an assault last night. Maybe if you’d been there I wouldn’t have had to.”

The cop laughed like it was the stupidest thing he ever heard but Diego didn’t see the humor in it. Reciting some bullshit about remaining silent, he reached for the cuffs on his belt, and when his hand came forward, Diego swiped it away. Fire in his veins. Instinct. Just enough space between his teeth to utter one word.

“Don’t.”

Somewhere behind the alarm sounding in his skull he heard Vanya exhale a shaking, exasperated breath, leaping to his defense in a tone that mirrored his own rage.

“He didn’t do anything wrong, asshole.”

The cop ignored them both, forceful as he pushed Diego against the side of the car and emptied his pockets. A _tsk tsk tsk_ at the knife sent heat through his chest. It’d be easy to stop it. Easy to snap every bone if he wanted to. And he wanted to. Arms wrenched back behind him, a hold he could break without a second thought. He saw Vanya’s reflection in the car window, the worried anger festering in her eyes, and instead allowed himself to be moved, pushed into the back of the car. The door slammed shut in his face. Vanya protested, and the cop spoke something low in her direction. Diego couldn’t make it out, but she stepped back, scowling deep enough to leave hard lines.

A small crowd gathered near the front of the club, watching as the lights flashed inside, readying for the show. He’d miss it. The Prime-8’s wouldn’t play. Teeth came down against the inside of his mouth. Blood rushed over his gums. Heart beating hard, hurting. 

Vanya stared from the sidewalk, the realization hitting her the same way—like a freight train carrying an atom bomb. Her face went pale and seething. Diego turned in the backseat as the car drove away. He watched her disappear, every second fighting the urge to break a window with his boot. His bones turned to stone, unmoving in anger, lungs frozen halfway between full and empty the whole ride out. 

At that police station, he sat in a small, nicotine-yellowed room, large enough for a single table and two chairs on each side though he was alone for a long time in there, long enough he was sure the gig at the club had started and ended already and that the Prime-8’s were insignificant. He had ruined them. Head down against the cold table, the thought was easy to accept, a certainty.

By the time his nails had dug a trench into the top of his hand the door finally swung open. Diego sat up straight without thinking, then leaned back again. Cigarette smoke wafted in around him and for half a moment he almost expected to see Vanya, but when he turned around his shoulders dropped in disappointment at the familiar face who appeared instead. Dark, circular glasses reflected back at him, frown hidden beneath a heavy moustache, the cigarette a stick of ash barely hanging on as Inspector Lupo slapped a folder onto the table in front of him and waited for some kind of welcome or greeting but Diego only muttered. 

“Shit.”

“You can say that again,” Lupo replied, plopping down into the empty chair.

“All the cops in this city and—”

“And you’re lucky you’ve got me.” He flipped the folder open and stared down at a wall of text sitting inside along with a couple photographs. Diego recognized the faces, despite the swelling that distorted them. The bruises shaped like his fist were a sharp reminder. “Had a feeling this was your handiwork.” Lupo’s eyes rose steadily behind the shadow of his glasses, voice unimpressed. “All the punk kids in this city and I end up dealing with you.”

Diego kept his gaze unfocused. Somewhere deep in his bones he could feel the crashing of his knuckles into the other man’s skull like an old, familiar friend and his usual excuse slipped out to follow suit.

“They deserved it.”

“Most people ask for a lawyer,” Lupo said. “Though I guess I should know better when it comes to you, _Kraken_. What will the old man think when he finds out that you’re here?”

Diego scoffed. He probably wouldn’t think much of anything at all.

“It doesn’t matter. I left the Academy.”

“You ran away?”

“No. I left.”

The long ash from Lupo’s cigarette finally broke into a crumble, and he snuffed the last half inch out against the table before immediately pulling a pack from his breast pocket and lighting another. 

“So how come you’re still out there doing this—” He pointed down to the photographs, then slid them over toward Diego. He didn’t need to look at them. “They jump you?

“No.”

“Threaten you?”

He didn’t answer, jaw tightening until it hurt.

“But they deserved it?”

“If you’re gonna lock me up then just get it over with,” Diego said, tired of the questions already and that self-satisfied look on Lupo’s face, like he already had it all figured out. Like it was just so easy.

He sighed smoke and flipped the folder closed. “I know these guys. Regulars in and out of here, of course they deserved it. I’m just trying to figure out why you still think it’s your job to make that decision if you left the Academy.”

“What was I supposed to do? Let them get away with assault—or is that only your job?” 

“You could try picking up a payphone.”

Diego shook his head, gaze down. It wasn’t worth a proper response, so he didn’t even bother.

“Can I go now?” he asked. “I don’t need a lecture.”

“What you need are some consequences. Maybe that’s your problem—”

Diego lurched forward until the edge of the table cut into his chest hard enough to leave a bruise, glaring into Lupo’s eyes as fire burned at the back of his throat. “I know consequences.”

The room fell into harsh silence and the words hung heavy in the air. Diego’s own scars stared back at him in the reflection of dark lenses, a reminder to both of them how true that statement was. To his surprise, Lupo looked regretful. A frown dropped from beneath that heavyset moustache as he tried to recalibrate the conversation. 

“You ditched the mask and costume.”

Diego’s veins were still burning but he moved back slowly. “What’s your point?”  
“You left the Umbrella Academy.” Embers ate away at his cigarette as he plucked it from his mouth and pointed it at Diego with a crooked finger. “You walked away?”

He nodded, unsure where Lupo was headed with the observation, if anywhere at all.

“So walk away.”

They were both quiet. Diego waited for something more but there wasn’t any, and he spoke the words as if they were a fine point all their own. They weren’t. They didn’t make sense, meaningless as they circled around him. Diego brushed them away with a stiff hand.

“I thought we covered this.”

“Maybe you turned your back on it,” Lupo said, gaze lingering on the bright splash of violent color painted across Diego’s knuckles. “But you sure as hell didn’t leave it behind.”

He brought his hands down to his lap to move them out of view. Fingers tightened around nothing, wishing for his knife, growing more annoyed each moment he didn’t have it. 

“I did you a favor last night with those two assholes,” Diego said. “Either charge me or let me go.”

Lupo sucked down one last mouthful of smoke as he thought about it. When he was finished, he pushed his chair out with a grunt and stood. “Luckily, I’m already tired of dealing with you.” 

Diego hesitated to move at all.

“You aren’t gonna call Har—”

“You’re your own problem now,” Lupo said. He reached for another cigarette and tried to hide a harsh cough in the crook of his arm. “Though if you’re looking for advice—”

“I’m not.”

“But if you were, I’d say you still got a long time to figure out who it is you wanna be. Maybe you should take advantage.” He coughed again or cleared his throat and moved on quickly. “There’s a girl outside been asking for you. Said she’s your sister. Not the Rumor, the other one.”

Diego didn’t dwell on the things he had said though they followed him when he left the cramped yellow room, like flies buzzing in his ears, waiting hungry for a carcass to drop. He tried to ignore them as Lupo led him through the station where cops watched him sideways, sneering when he passed and whispering things that didn’t matter but made Diego’s jaw clench nonetheless. 

Vanya’s voice carried down the hall, cursing about something to a man behind a desk. She could be loud when she wanted, always fighting to be heard. Relief softened her face when she saw Diego but it was temporary, quickly replaced with a glare he felt six layers deep and a fist coiled like a snake that looked ready to deck him. He’d let her. It was the least he could do, all things considered.

“You okay?” she asked, words cold as they left her mouth.

Diego nodded. He wasn’t sure if she was glad to hear it or not. She scanned over him and Lupo, who regarded her carefully.

“You’re number seven?” he asked.

“I’m Vanya,” she said forcefully.

“Don’t hear much about you.”

“You wouldn’t.”

She pulled a cigarette from her pack and like second nature, Lupo produced his lighter with the flame waiting. She considered it before finding her own instead. He only shrugged and disappeared behind a locked door on the other side of the counter and when he returned, a small envelope was clutched between his fingers.

“Hoping I don’t have to see you again.”

“Feeling’s mutual,” Diego said, but he had a feeling they both meant something different. He took the envelope and didn’t bother with a thank you, though there was something inside him that might’ve been grateful. Lupo didn’t look bothered when he retreated down the hall and disappeared.

Diego ripped the package open outside and retrieved his belongings. He pocketed the wallet quickly, but savored the feel of the knife in his hand, flipping it a few times and watching it glisten through the cold night like he’d forgotten what it was like. The street around the station was unusually empty and he felt like he must’ve spent hours or even years locked up inside the yellow room. Vanya didn’t say a word, silence like a brick wall as she kept herself occupied with her cigarette, flicking the ash hard and often without savoring the smoke.

He knew he should say something, but nothing felt right.

“Where’s Body?” he asked. The only thing that made it past his throat. 

“He’s trying to work something out with the band, the tour manager…” The words fell flat, rolling away with disappointment as she turned her head. 

Diego slipped the knife away and tried again.

“I didn’t mean for all this to happen.”

Closer, but still not right.

“You never do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, brow furrowing. 

Vanya stopped suddenly to look at him. Her mouth opened then slammed shut again and she turned down the street without a word. Diego followed but her pace quickened. Smoke spilled out in waves behind her and cut against his face like salt in the wound. Beneath flashing city lights he caught glimpses of her anger in and out of shadow and whenever he came close to her side she sped up, never once looking back at him, ignoring him when he called her name, and each time it made him want to walk away. If it were anyone else, he would have. But it wasn’t. It was Vanya, and they were in it together, at least they were supposed to be, so he followed and kept her in sight through a thickening crowd as she maneuvered herself further and further away down corners and crosswalks and nearly straight into traffic.

He reached out and gripped her shoulder before she could, but she twisted so hard from his grasp that she almost stumbled over her own feet. When she recovered her balance she pushed him back with all the force she had, palms like a sledgehammer sending him a few steps down the sidewalk. Busy streets passed them by, eyes watching. The space between them grew and Diego didn’t try to fix it. 

“Would you just wait—”

“I’ve been waiting all night! Seventeen years, actually.”

“We can still leave. Fuck the tour, we can go wherever we wanna go.”

It sounded less than sincere behind the pounding of his heartbeat deep in his ears and Vanya must have thought so too, because she rolled her eyes so hard her whole head moved with them.

“It’s never gonna change,” she said. She looked smaller beneath the towering buildings that surrounded them, and she sounded small, too, but certain. “There’s always gonna be something that comes first. You’re always looking for a fight, trying to impress dad, whatever. Sometimes it feels like I’m the only one who wants to move on.”

Her words dug into him, clawing beneath the skin, loud despite the noise of traffic passing by, and the hammering in his chest and her broken, smoke-ragged voice that left his fingers in knots. They squeezed until the soreness in his knuckles flared through his hands and kept going, spreading like a fire. Burning him up.

“You think I wanna go back?” he asked, voice as rigid as his bones and distant from his body.

Vanya gaped in a way that only it made it worse. “You don’t get it. You never have.”

“That we had a shit life? I got it, trust me.”

“This band!” She threw her arms up desperately, as if she was trying to grasp whatever was left of it. “It’s the only thing I have and you’re too busy trying to prove something to the Academy to give a shit.”

Hit after hit, Diego felt raw, bleeding out on the pavement but when he looked down there was nothing. Copper built up on his tongue, weighing it down until he forced it free.

“The _only_ thing you have?”

It tasted bitter in his throat.

Vanya was quiet. Her shoulders fell, eyes at her feet. Dismissive and defeated and too detached for it to matter. 

“I only came down here to make sure you weren’t in jail, and you’re not, so…” She paused before turning away again. “I’ll see you back at the apartment.”

Diego didn’t bother trying to follow as she disappeared, engulfed in a haze of neon light until he couldn’t see her at all. Bodies moved around him like ocean waves and soon they were both lost in the swelling crowd, drifting apart on the tide, alone in the faceless sea. 

It wasn’t so bad. Easier, he decided. Something he could get used to.

The apartment felt less like home than it had the night before. 

Diego collapsed into Vanya’s space on the couch like she’d forfeited her right to have it. He ran a hand over his chest, against his ribs, and a low ache greeted him—bruises he couldn’t remember. It was normal, those aches, sometimes even comforting. Reminders of a life spent fighting, clawing, surviving. Things to be proud of. Under the dull glare of city lights filtered through the foggy window, he counted the marks across his hands. There were more than he remembered, lines over lines etched into the skin. A roadmap leading nowhere. He brought a hand to his face and touched the right side, feeling over the concave wreckage of his eye socket. It never much bothered him before, but that hollow space seemed to spread through him now, eating up everything it touched, and for what?

He closed his remaining eye and asked himself the question again as years worth of exhaustion crept up on him and pulled him away. Hargreeves’ distant stare followed him through the dark, always with disdain. The last image he saw before he fell asleep.

Maybe Vanya was right. He wasn’t ever good at letting go.

Diego shot awake, breathless, gasping for air before he realized he didn’t need it. The panicked heaving of his chest slowed and then stopped altogether. He sat on the edge of the couch, looking over the apartment, vision still foggy with sleep but clear enough to know that the space beside him on the floor was vacant except for the trash. Vanya hadn’t come back. He took in the emptiness around him, fingers tapping anxiously against his knee. He was alone. The realization hit him differently the second time.

Night stretched on outside the window where cold air circled around him. The city was quiet, ready for early morning. He stood and peaked into Body’s bedroom. Maybe the two of them had gone for drinks, or something else to distract themselves from the mess that Diego had created, but Body was a lump in the bed, snoring like a chainsaw into his pillow.  
A hundred different scenarios flashed inside his head, crime scenes and other bloody messes. None of them ended well. Something heavy settled down in his gut and he left the apartment in a hurry.

He didn’t bother taking the van. It was easier without it, and he knew the city well enough to get by through back streets and alleyways and fine-tuned instinct. He followed the red, flashing glare of police sirens and ambulances and searched every alcove he knew to be trouble, but there wasn’t any sign of Vanya, not even a whisper. It didn’t make him feel any better. Fear ran through him violently, and he practiced what he might say when he found her, and then what he would say if he didn’t. The words never sounded right either way.

Music clashed distant down the street and caught him off guard as the notes twisted around a corner, loud and messy and a little bit melodic. Familiar on the wind. The noise pulled him forward and through the entrance of a dive bar he saw Vanya on stage, a mic in her hand, belting out a sloppy song to an ambivalent crowd. Enjoying the moment like it might be ripped away.

She had always been good at disappearing. She spent her life being invisible and sometimes all it took was knowing that somebody would come looking. Or at least that they cared enough to try. Diego watched until the song ended, anger washing through him until he was all worn away. Flames burning weak and suffocating. Relief filled him up instead. She found a place at the bar and despite every open wound telling him to walk away, he followed, and took the seat to her left.

“Pretty good up there,” he said. “Maybe you should join a band.”

The joke didn’t land. After all, he was out of practice.

Vanya whipped around on her stool, a scowl at the ready, which faded blank as her eyes settled on Diego. She frowned instead. An empty glass sat in front of her, but the ashtray at her side overflowed with the butts of her favorite brand. Must’ve gone through a whole pack sitting there, waiting to be found or not. Expecting to be forgotten.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. She held her drink up high to collect the last few drops leftover on her tongue. “Not your usual scene, is it?”

“I was looking for you.”

She set the glass down slow and eyed him carefully before swallowing. There was no life in her voice when she spoke. “I don’t need you to play big brother all the time, checking up on me like we’re still kids—” 

“You were right,” Diego said before anything else could muddy it up. It’s not exactly what he had practiced, or what he meant, but it was close. “What you said earlier, you were right.”

The bartender set a fresh drink down in front of them. Vanya didn’t touch it. Diego thought about swallowing it down himself, anything to wash the night away. To try something new. To be someone else. To make it easier. Vanya took it in hand before he could make a decision and turned it between her fingertips, letting the amber liquid swirl against the glass.

“I thought if we left then it would be easy to forget,” she said, eyes focused on the movement of the liquor. “Like we could out run dad, y’know. And then everything would be better. I was wrong.” She finished the drink like a period at the end of her sentence.

“Maybe not,” Diego said, trying to convince himself just as much. He gestured to the bar and its patrons, unconcerned with the two of them and who they were and who they weren’t. “Hargreeves isn’t here. We never have to see him again.”

Vanya’s lips curved, but not in joy, like she was holding something back.

“He is here,” she said. Her voice was quiet, but strong. Glass already shattered into pieces so small they were unbreakable. “He’s here.” She brought an index finger to her temple, then tapped Diego in the center of his forehead. “He’s there.”

He flinched back from her touch and somewhere buried deep he heard that cold voice again, bouncing off the inside of his skull. They sat with it a minute, the echoes that felt closer than they did far. Vanya reached for a smoke before she noticed the pack empty and sighed. She looked alone. She wasn’t.

Behind them an argument broke between two drunks and a glass shattered. Diego’s hand darted toward his knife but he stopped halfway and brought it back up to the counter where it stayed. Slurred words were silenced by the sound of the jukebox and the steady, comfortable hum that danced from the speakers and vibrated beneath his feet and blanketed around the whole of him. The argument silenced with the whispers in his ear and in those few moments nothing else could touch him. Not Hargreeves, or the Academy, or the past. None of it mattered a damn.

Diego slid off his seat, paying little mind to the fight that continued a few tables away, and slapped some crumpled bills on the counter to cover for the drinks. Vanya looked at him, confusion swimming in glossy eyes. 

“Fuck Hargreeves,” he told her, the same way he had a hundred times before, only now he could feel the electricity in his throat burning pleasant with new life. New purpose. Bad Ideas. “Follow me.”

Vanya raised a brow and he assured her with a smile that came easy. Rare for him, but she didn’t question it, jumping to her feet without hesitation. 

They stopped by the apartment to retrieve a few cans of spray paint from the back of the van, used to mark their gear with the Prime-8’s logo and saved for nights when they felt reckless. He didn’t tell Vanya where they were headed when she asked, and once the Clever Crisp Cereal billboard came into view, looming above them with a vengeance, she stopped dead to stare up at it, eyes narrow with hate.

Diego gave her a minute before nudging her with a gentle elbow, and she let out a breath before finally crossing the street toward the massive image. 

The ladder at the base of led so far up into the night sky Diego lost sight of the end. He swung the bag of spray paint over his shoulder and glanced to Vanya one more time and though she looked unsure, she nodded and rung by rung they made their ascent. 

The wind hit sharp at the top. Diego dropped the bag and leaned over the edge to help Vanya up from the ladder before taking in the sight of the billboard. It looked distorted up close, covered in bird shit and white-washed from the sun. He liked it better that way.

Vanya laid back on the platform, panting dramatically from the climb. “How do you do that shit all the time?” She sat up quickly and paused. “Nevermind, don’t answer that.”

“It’s easier when you don’t have to breathe,” he said.

She rolled her eyes, only half-amused. “I figured.”

“Don’t worry.” He kneeled down and pulled the bag open as she stood beside him. A can of paint rolled out and he hurried to snatch it up before it went over the edge. “It’ll be worth it.”

“It already is,” Vanya said, awe-struck as she gazed out over the city. She gripped the railing tight like she might fall off otherwise, but her eyes never moved from the view. She wasn’t used to seeing it so far up and it showed in her smile, wide and childlike and untainted by the years that had ruined them.

Diego rose beside her and it felt like he was seeing it for the first time, too. Lights began to fade beneath a dying night that took the shadows along with them. It was different, he decided. 

Endless.

He reached down for a can of paint and shook it mindlessly as he turned his focus back to the billboard, and to the past, and every scar left as a reminder inside and out. The can hissed as he pressed down on the release. His hands, so accustomed to brutality, moved with determination, stretching the paint across the width of the image until every inch he could reach was covered in full. Vanya joined in and it wasn’t long before the billboard turned into a mess of paint and obscenities and the proud logo of the Prime-8’s so the old man would know just who did it and then he’d understand, even if he didn't care, he'd understand. Now they were untouchable.

“It’s an improvement,” Vanya said, chin-up proud at what had been accomplished.

Diego threw an empty can down and took in an eyeful of the canvas. Colors exploded into wild chaos. There wasn’t a trace of Hargreeves left standing, and in the center, sprawling and wide, two bold words stuck out above all else. Not a piece of art, but a message: Fuck you.

Sure as shit, she was right.

Paint-stained and exhausted they sat at the edge of the platform and watched as pale blue light began to reach across the horizon and in the obscene, unbreakable quiet that accompanied early morning, Diego finally found the words he had been choking on for so long.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

They hung in the air like a cloud of Vanya’s smoke, but heavier, sinking slow. He took the knife from his pocket and twirled it aimlessly between his fingers hoping they might dissipate soon, but they lingered until Vanya let out a small huff of a laugh and blew them away.

“You know what’s sad?” she said, leaning her head back and taking in the orange haze of sunrise. “This was still one of the best nights of my life. Top three, easy.”

Diego’s hands froze and the knife stopped moving. He spent so much time thinking about the bad nights, he forgot to consider the good ones.

“What were the other two?” he asked.

“First night we snuck out to play a gig. I was so nervous I spent twenty minutes dry heaving in the bathroom before the show.”

He smiled as the memory played like new in his mind. “Only way I could get you out was by holding your cigarettes hostage.”

“I could’ve killed you for that,” she said with a laugh. “But it worked out pretty well, didn’t it?”

He nodded. The wind sounded something like the crowd from that night and the hair on his arms stood up with a chill. After the show, when they’d stumbled back in through an open window, high from the bloodrush of the gig, Pogo was waiting for them with a stern look and a lecture, but he never did tell Hargreeves where they’d been. Probably, he already knew. It didn’t matter. It was their first taste of a real life, one worth living, seconded only by the day they made a record. Just one song, but even that was enough, scratched into vinyl with the force of a car wreck, and they finally had something real to hold onto. 

Diego smiled as he let himself experience that one more time. He ran a finger over the edge of his knife and it faded. 

“It’s not the only thing,” Vanya said abruptly. 

The suddenness of it caught him off guard and he only looked at her, silent.

“The band,” she clarified. “When I said that I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay. I know what you meant.” He tried not to sound bitter, but it was hard for him sometimes, so he kept his voice quiet as a whisper to hide it away with the hurt.

“It wouldn’t be same without you. I don’t even think I’d do it.”

Something sharp and jagged ran through him, stopping at the back of his throat. “Even after I ruined the tour?”

“I don’t give a shit about the tour,” she said with a certainty he didn’t expect. “I don’t care if we play on an empty street to a stray dog. I just don’t wanna be the one who’s left behind. _Again_.”

The weight of that pressed down on him and it felt like the whole platform might crumble to the ground. His gaze dropped to the knife in his hand.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he said, nodding to the city, catching its light in the reflection of the blade. “I don’t even know who I’m supposed to be out there.”

The words themselves surprised him. They weren’t meant for an excuse and he couldn’t tell if Vanya took them that way. Regardless, he felt stupid having said them and wished that he hadn’t, that he could take them back altogether and move on. Just move on.

Vanya didn’t turn away from the pool of light spreading from the horizon when she shrugged. “I guess we’ll both figure it out eventually, right?”

Eventually. Somewhere between now and later and anytime in between—an idea like a livewire sparking in a bathtub. Chaotic, but free.

When he didn’t respond, Vanya’s eyes moved toward him sideways and unsure. Diego couldn’t blame her for that, but it stung anyway and festered beneath the surface, itching as he turned the knife over and over in his grasp.

“We will, won’t we?” she asked quietly. Maybe to herself. Maybe to no one at all. 

Diego’s hands went still and every inch of him froze with the question. Cold morning air cut across his face and the whole city opened beneath a stretch of warm light, glowing like it never had. He tightened his fingers against the knife one more time before loosening them, then flipped it in his hand and flung it over his shoulder without looking back. The blade drilled into the billboard where it stayed. Where he’d leave it.

“Eventually,” he said. He liked the way it sounded and how it felt. 

Vanya nodded.

He held a fist out between them, waiting, and after a moment she hit it lightly with her own, but there was power behind it, too. Conviction. It said all that needed to be said. Diego filled his chest with fresh air and let it out easy.

They did it this time.

They were free.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally meant to be a quick, fun fic about punk kid antics, so I'm not sure how it became THIS, but the tone felt true to the characters so I just ran with it. I have a lot of unused ideas still floating around, and I left this purposefully a bit open so I could come back to it at some point if inspiration strikes again, but for now, take it as it is. Had I planned for it to be this long I would've cut it into chapters, but I didn't, and then the flow seemed off when I tried.
> 
> Some last little details: I headcanon Diego as straightedge, which is where the whole "no drinking" thing comes from. Realistically, I don't see him letting go of control enough to allow it and straightedge lifestyle is a huge offset of punk culture, so it fits. On the other hand, I see Vanya as a chainsmoker and a social drinker. 
> 
> I love the idea of Lupo as a kind of mentor figure to Diego if things had panned out differently, though playing with Diego's distaste for cops is fun, especially since I imagine it's much worse as a teen who has a problem with authority.


End file.
